ABSTRACT
Western representations of indigenous peoples have been characterized historically with an emphasis on their preindustrial (underdeveloped) ecological practices and otherness with respect to western economic progress and cultural “normalcy.” Only recently have western discourses represented indigenous peoples as equals (if not superiors) due to their status as valued allies and participants in the cause of environmentalism. There are multiple reasons for the West's newfound interest in this coalition. Much of this interest is due to the efforts of indigenous peoples themselves: indigenous political strategies that emphasize the environment; indigenous discourses that reposition indigenous representations in the western imaginary; the practical interventions of indigenous practices within nonindigenous environmental and developmental discourses. For its part, the West has contributed changes in its conceptualizations of indigenous peoples and nature as elements of this growing interest: an awareness of the necessity of constructing a new society due to the crisis of industrial economic development; the epistemological shift in natural and social sciences concerning notions of nature; the desire to profit from the territories and resources of indigenous peoples within its commercial circuits, and a growing awareness that indigenous people indeed often have better ideas about environmental management, among others. However, the principal reason for this coalition is the growing awareness in the West of the global environmental crisis that it has caused and the consequent emergence of efforts to formulate alternatives to old ways of interacting with “nature.” The result, from the western perspective, has been a steady movement toward a global eco-governmentality.
